Saturday, July 12, 2008

11 days...

Well, when it comes down to it I am freaking out. I haven't updated since April 26th and it is now July 12 (okay.. it's 12:38 am, which means that it's just July 11 plus 38 minutes.. but that's more of a technicality). A LOT has happened! My dad came in May which was amazing. We went to the jungle and saw all kinds of amazing plants and animals. We went to the Napo Wildlife Center in the Yasuni National Park. It was beautiful, and best of all, the profits of the organization go into the local indigenous community. We saw monkeys and caymans (Caymen?) and birds-- not too many insects.. and one giant tarantula! It was amazing- you travel 2 hours in a motorized canoe and then another 2 hours in a paddle canoe (the guides do all the canoeing!) down a BEAUTIFUL river until we got to this lake- it was so pristine, so clear that it perfectly reflected the indigenous-styled, although fairly luxurious cabins, the surrounding trees and flora-- it was impossible to take my eyes away from the water. And best of all, at night we looked up and saw the Southern Cross! It's amazing! AND- (the only place you can do this, btw, is on the equator or very close to it) then you turn around, and see the North Star. It literally brought tears to my eyes-- and it was a nice change to cry over something that wasn't bad students.

Then my birthday came, and my boyfriend (professional soccer player by day, club bouncer by night) Darwin (remember, the Galapagos Islands are in Ecuador, and Darwin is a popular name) decorated my entire room in flowers. There were rose petals that said "Happy B-DAY" on my bed (Angie helped him because his English is not very good. He doesn't know the difference between "I like" and "I like you"- so he goes around saying "I like you, movie!" and "I like you, rice!" It's so cute I don't want to correct him!), long stemmed red roses flanking my door and closet and woven, with sunflowers, into my headboard. There were daisies and other flowers in my closet, tucked behind my wall-hangings, daisies and carnations in my curtains, and two vases of two dozen roses adorning my bedside table and my toilet! He also had a huge flower arrangement of roses for me. It was SO amazing.. it also literally brought tears to my eyes. I was beside myself. Having counted, I had 120 roses, 40 long-stemmed, and more other flowers than I could count. In the States it would have cost HUNDREDS of dollars. Here, he paid $30 (there's no taboo in Ecuador about asking how much things cost- which was good, because I was REALLY curious!) including the cab ride to the florist! Wild, right?

School wound down with incredible and unbelievable drama that is literally only possible here: Here, as I have explained, the students all travel to all the same classes with their "curso"- which has some benefits, but what happens if a student fails a class, you might wonder. Answer: they have to repeat all 14 classes the following year. SO in order to prevent that from happening, students who don't receive a total sum (remember, each trimester is graded out of 20) of 40 or higher have to take a mandatory "Supletorio" exam. It's kind of like a 4 week summer school. If they pass that exam, they pass the class. If they don't pass the exam they don't. Well- in theory. There were two kids in "6to Curso" - which is basically senior year- who had failed TWO supletorio exams. They needed a 12 to pass and they both received 6. (6!) One of the classes was English. When a kid fails the exam the parents can appeal it. First step is to have the exam re-graded by 3 different teachers from the school. Being a native speaker, I was naturally called to be part of this committee. I'll spare all the nasty details, but through some very liberal and, occasionally, only semi-ethical finessing, we raised the girl's grade to a 9 and the boy's to a 7. We wrote up a report and handed it in to the principal who then freaked out about how any good teacher can't make that big a mistake- and then I explain that although there were 2 questions that were graded incorrectly (one was marked correct that was wrong, and the other wrong that was right), the points were given because we gave the kid the benefit of the doubt. Then they called (another!) junta- or meeting of all the teachers to review the re-graded exams, to vote on whether or not the kids should pass the year (and why the science, math, history, social studies, spanish grammar, art, dance, and P.E. teachers should get a vote on whether or not the kid passes English is something I still don't understand-- but anyway), and then, discuss whether or not the teacher should be sanctioned for the grading "errors." The result of which was that everyone in the school was fighting, and except for me, the other two teachers who re-graded, and the original teacher, no one was actually involved in the situation. The junta decided that the teacher should not be sanctioned, and that the students did not pass.

The parents, then, went on to the Ministry and the students' tests were again re-graded. This time they passed. Meanwhile, nearly everyone in the school, somehow, was mad at me for re-grading the exam. In a staff meeting I asked a question and said "I don't understand" and was yelled at instantly from the back of the room "No mamita- you DON'T understand!" Then some students broke into my classroom and stole my camera and $15 dollars from my purse. Thankfully they didn't take my computer!

SO- although there were ups and downs, I wasn't too sad to leave when the time came. It was tough to say goodbye to my students, because as much as they gave me hell, they were all very sweet as individuals. One student, at the end, apologized to me for making me cry once, and then gave me a hug so strong that my back cracked. I also had some great friends there who really took good care of me and gave me good advice. My friend Jesus took me out to lunch one day and told me that he was really proud of me for how I had handled myself over the year. He congratulated me on staying away from people who had (in his words) "bad intentions" and on making good friends with good people. He said I'd earned the respect of a lot of people- which was really nice to hear after feeling occasionally very alone. In the end, I'm SO glad I worked there. I learned so much more than I would have anywhere else and I will carry what I learned with me forever.. hopefully I'll let go of some of the yelling and crying- but I'll remember encouragment, flexibility, consistency, toughness, and that no matter WHAT I accidentally scream at kids one day before leaving the room in tears, the next day is always a chance to make a new start. (For the record- the worst thing I ever yelled was "YOU ARE NOT MONKEYS! YOU ARE HUMAN BEINGS!"- which was not great- but at least there was no profanity!) And I can remember how my 5th graders collapsed with laughter every time I said "ooh baby!" or "okay-dokey artichokey"---- which may not be the best English ever, but just remembering their laughter fills me up.

(I've been trying- as I said- to get a job teaching in the states- and because of that I have been practicing interview questions and answers. I went through many ideas about how to answer the inevitable "classroom management" question. I thought of anecdotes- where my student pulled out a very weapon-y looking bebe gun during class, pointed it at another student, and shot it (there were no bebes thankfully!). When my 9B students formed a gauntlet every day for the 9A students to walk through as they left class, effectively causing a brawl in my classroom twice a week (hence the monkeys comment and subsequent tears). I thought about explaining the cheating and the disrespect. I thought about explaining when I gave them a seating chart- how they sat in their assigned seats, and then got up and sat where they wanted. Then I told them: "No, this is your desk. You have to sit in this desk," how some of them then tried to move the desk to sit next to their friends. I thought about the pantsing epidemic, the unscrewing of various parts of the desks so that when someone sat down, stood up, or leaned back (depending on what had been loosened) they would fall down. I thought about when the kids decided to cut off the white stripes on the pants of their track suits to be cool, and then denied it in front of their tutor (class advisor) until I said "Jose Daniel- you took the stripes, tied them together, put them on your head and pretended you were a NINJA!" and he couldn't help from laughing. I've decided that if and when I am asked my answer will be "My classroom management experience in Ecuador was this: With the exception of violence, I have never heard a story, read a book, or seen a movie in which the students consistently behaved as badly as my 8th and 9th graders that year." Of course- now that it's all over, I'm laughing hysterically as I'm remembering this-- especially the ninja thing. I'm not saying that kid wasn't so frustrating that I didn't want to shove him out the window a little bit.... I'm just saying that he was a little bit funny.)

AFTER that- Darwin and I went to Manta for our 6 month anniversary and stayed with his mom. Manta is a coastal town so, for the second time in nearly 10 months, I was warm! The beach was lovely, and his family was very nice. I felt a little awkward sometimes, but I think they were very intimidated by having a "gringa" in the house. There's this conception that we all have money, and I know Darwin was very worried that I would judge the place for being poor.. and that idea carried over to his family. Hopefully they didn't take any of that away from me. Their house was lovely. Small, definitely, but cozy and comfortable and clean. The food was fantastic. They didn't want for anything- and there were always children, neighbors, brothers and sisters in law, nieces, nephews, second cousins, -- babies crying, children laughing, men talking, women calling across the way, motorcycles revving, bachata, vallenato, and reggaeton competing with each other as every open-windowed house blasted their stereo system. At one point Darwin yelled at me for criticizing his house and I had to stop and tell him that if he felt that I was judging them, then those feelings were not based on any of my actions, because I had nothing to judge or criticize. I really enjoyed it. Also, Darwin's niece and nephew spend most of their time with their grandmother, and it was really fun getting a taste of what it's like to have kids around. Darwin and I bought his 7 year old niece, Nicole, a backpack to congratulate her on getting 20s on her exams, and some racecars for his 1 year old nephew. We took Nicole to the beach and for ice cream. Naturally she loves him, and with all the presents she got, she would have been crazy not to love me too!! Of course- it was a little awkward at times being with a family- an outsider and foreigner- and someone who didn't always understand their CosteƱo accents-- but in the end I was sad to go.

So that's it! I'm back in Quito. It's freezing. Everyone I know is either in the states or working, so while I keep busy, I'm definitely going to be ready to go back to the states. I'm still looking for a job- was told by the Los Angeles Unified School District that they don't do phone interviews, so I'm out of luck there. It is going to be really really hard to leave- so I don't know if I'll come back or not. There are plusses and minuses to everything right now. Mom keeps telling me to take care of myself- don't get sick and don't get mugged. (I had strep throat again btw.) Well, I have another parasite (But thank GOD I'm not nearly as sick as last time-- just a little rumbly in the tummy) and got followed by some guy last night, so I started running until I got to a hotel and hid behind the reception counter.

Actually, right as I was writing this I had an experience. I was at Bungalow 6, this cool club where my boyfriend works, but I was bored and took a cab home. The cab driver started whispering into his radio and making noises. He was telling his friend where he was, saying he'd meet him somewhere else, and then some things really fast and whispered that I didn't understand. Then he locked all the doors. I immediately unlocked mine and rolled down the window. (In my head, I would jump out of the running car, tuck and roll, and hightail it to another hotel-- hotels are my safe-spots). Then I thought, maybe he's going to drug me- because that's common here- there's a drug that knocks someone out if they touch or breathe it, so I start breathing only the air that's coming in from the open window, and I decide to give him my 5 dollar bill after getting out of the cab in case the change he gave me was drugged. Also, I called Darwin (who was working, bless his soul) and pretended like I was going to meet him in a second "Okay honey- I'll be there in one minute! Wait for me." Thankfully the cab driver was creepy, but either realizing that all my Alias watching had given me above-and-beyond skills to evade his trickster efforts, or just not being creepy enough to drug and kidnap me, he dropped me off at home. I then called Darwin again who, again, picked up the phone while working, and I explained that the cab driver had freaked me out. Then I put my phone in my pocket and it accidentally went on SILENT... so I'm writing this very long, very random of blogs and he rushes into my room and hugs me and then yells at me "WHERE WERE YOU! I CALLED YOU 9 TIMES!!!!" I checked my phone and there they were- 9 missed calls. He then contritely asked me for cab money to go back to work. I'm very curious as to whether he got permission to leave or not. There's no such thing as a break in Ecuador. We'll see tomorrow. Well, more accurately, later this morning. It's now 1:28. I'm still not sure how I feel about leaving. It is more offically June 12, which means 11 more days. I'm praying and crying.. sometimes I'm not sure for what.. but whatever happens- I've survived so far- God willing I'll make it another 2 weeks.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Casa Abierta....AAAAH!!

Well- it's been a while since I've updated.. but they say pictures are worth a thousand words, so I've added all my new pictures on links on the right. SO, here's the story of the Open House that we just had. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, but I was really not sure that was going to happen at first.

Well, about two weeks ago my boss told me that I had to do an Open House, so I was like "fine." And she asked me what I wanted to do and I explained, well, my fifth graders are writing personal narratives, so I can have those typed up and put up on the wall, and my older kids were making posters, so we could get that going... and I trailed off as she was looking at me like I was out of my mind. "No Margaret. You can not do that. You can have different stands for each of your grades where the kids can explain something. Your kids could dress up like animals and you could turn the room into a zoo!" This time I looked at her like She was crazy. "Or," she continued, "They could dress up like different world cultures. Alexandra Chuva is doing a Casa de Terror- how do you say in English?" I said: "Haunted House. Um, Adriana, I have no idea what this is. We don't do this in the states." She was surprised. "You don't have Open House in the United States?" and I said "Yeah- but it's more for the parents to come in, see some of the kids work and talk to the teacher-- there's no presentation really." And she said "Oh- okay, then just work with the 5th graders. You could have them dress up like animals and turn the room into a zoo!!" (Again). Also, she said that I would have to work with all the kids who weren't signed up to be in an open house yet for English. Realize, I only work with half of the fifth graders (there are 30 students, I have 14 in my class).

So, the next week she asks me "Margaret, what happened with the Open House?" (Everything she asks me begins with "What happened with..." it always freaks me out.) I told her I didn't know. She asked if I had an idea yet, and I told her I was thinking about doing play set in a restaurant and the kids could bring in food. "No." she told me. "What happened with the zoo? You could have the kids dress up like animals and be a zoo." I told her I still wasn't feeling that idea. So she said "Okay. You will have them explain Indigenous Cultures of Ecuador. They will dress up in Indigenous disguises (she meant costumes)" and she gave me a stack of information (in Spanish) about Indigenous cultures.

Then, the Monday before Open House I still didn't know which kids I was supposed to work with, so I sent representatives to some teachers and they gave me a list of kids I was obligated to work with. The other teachers had chosen 4 or 6 of the best students in the grade, so the 18 that were left over were obligated to be in my class. 13 of these 10-year-olds, by the way, were kids I'd never met before, and were the biggest trouble makers in the class. So I gave them some things to memorize about Indigenous cultures, and my boss came in. "Margaret, what happened with the parents?" "I don't know Adriana, what happened?" "Margaret, you need to ask them to help you. They will help you very much. I remember last year when these kids were with Patty Leon and they all dressed up like zoo animals and made a zoo." Although that was funny, my kids were LITERALLY kicking desks across the room for fun, and I freaked out. I told her "Adriana- I don't know what to do! I don't know what to ask, I don't know what to have them do, I don't even know these kids! I NEED HELP!" and she said "Margaret, don't get upset. I have things to do right now." and left. At that point, I turned around and saw one 10 year old flipping off another one. Then the bell rang, I took the kid to the principal, went back to my room, and I cried cried cried. The problem is that I knew there was this big presentational expectation, and I had no idea how to do it. I felt horrible.

Luckily, the next day (4 school days to Open House) two teachers pulled me into my bosses room and figured out everything I needed to ask the parents to bring. They ranged from construction paper to "Ask Jorge's parents to build two big palm trees out of wood," and then came to my class and assigned the kids what they had to bring... so then once that was done I was okay. It was Friday and all was right with the world.

Monday came and my boss asks me "Margaret, what happened with the Open House" and I told her "I've gotten it all under control.... for now" and things went according to schedule. I started to decorate my room. I put blue celophane over my windows to make the ocean and started to get my stuff together. On Tuesday I took all sorts of foam that the kids had brought and spent all afternoon and night cutting out foam letters to put up on the wall the next day, and when Wednesday came (the day before Open House) I got the ocean put together. One girl made a sun and clouds, so we put those up. Then I cut construction paper mountains to make the Andes and tried to make the mountains. I had the kids put up foam letters of all their indigenous tribes and tried to get the room organized. One girl brought in a garbage bag of aromatic plants and branches that I had no idea what to do with, I moved some desks out of the room and put more against the edges of the room and felt pretty good. Each kid had their space, the room was decorated... it wasn't great, but it was pretty cute.

Then one kid poked his head in my door and said "Oh. Well, that's okay teacher, it's your first open house." I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. Immediately afterwards another teacher (the same one who told me the other morning when I greeted him "Good Morning Milton" he said "You're getting fat. You should eat less and excercise more.") came in and said- "Here, let me help you. You need to separate these stations with hanging curtains. You need to have the kids bring in plants and decorations from the rainforest and then..." The tears welled up in my eyes as I realized that my room was a disappointment and a failure, and I didn't have enough time or resources to fix it. He came in and tried to help, but instead of actually helping, he just told me everything that was wrong with what I'd done. I asked him to leave and locked the door and cried. Then my boss came in and said "Margaret, what happened with the room?" I explained to her that I was doing my best, but I wasn't sure what else to do, and she said "What happened with your friend the Tennis teacher?" I said "I don't know! What happened?" and she said "Why don't you ask him to help you?"

So I found Esteban (my friend from school.. he's amazing) and he comes in and says: "Okay Margo, we want this place to look like a forest. What's this?" and he grabbed the bag of plants "Excellent! He said, and he grabbed plants and started to tape them to the walls. He pulled leaves off and put them on the ground to make a boundary for the kids to stand behind. He gave me instructions for the rest of the plants and left. Then he said "I'll be back" and he came back with our friend Luis, the Ping Pong teacher (really. that's his job.) and left Luis to help me. As my students were wandering by they came in to help, cutting out flowers and organizing things. One boy told me that he had a number of indigenous things in his house if I wanted him to loan them to me. The others offered to help me decorate the hallway outside my room. At the end of the day, I felt really good about everything.

The next day the boy showed up with two 4 1/2 foot tall palm trees made out of wood and another boy showed up with a jungle cat skin, a throwing spear, weapons and a turtle shell to loan me. I got everything ready. An hour went by. Then another one. At that point things were starting to get going for the Casa Abierta, and I started to look for my kids. They needed to get in their costumes and get ready. So, since I'm working with 5th graders, I went to their teacher's room to look for her. This woman has never been particularly friendly or helpful, but whatever. So I go find her room and knock on her door..... and there are all my kids-- in her Open House. So I ask her when they'll be ready for mine (realize, Open House goes from 9 to 2) and she goes "I don't know... MAYBE 1:30?" "One thirty?" I asked her? "Maybe" she said-- and my Spanish got stuck in my head as I tried to figure out how to tell her "Well, that would have been nice to know before." I STORMED back to my room and threw a temper tantrum. I tried to call my mom but my phone wouldn't work, so I went to my friend Ana's class. There were only 2 or 3 kids in there and they were busy playing chess. (It's the latest fad for all the 13th graders-- they're learning in a class or something.) So I Start telling Ana what happened.. how they forced me to do an open house, how they assigned me these students even though I didn't even know them from Adam, how they criticized my room and made me worry for two weeks about it, and now this teacher wasn't going to let me have my kids until it was almost over.. after all that. She advised me to talk to someone, so I found the director of the primary school and told her.. and she freaked out. She looked me in the face and said "Margaret, you know what happened? That teacher was supposed to make a list and a schedule a WEEK ago so that this wouldn't happen, but she didn't do it, so now she's trying to blame you for the conflict. Don't worry. What time do you want your kids?" So, I told her 12:30- so that the kids could do their open house with her, eat, and then come to mine for an hour or so.

That wound up being great because I got to go to all the other Open Houses-- TWO of which included mini tequila shots for everone 18 and over. Which I thought was funny. Here's the thing- after all this expectation and all my being told that, essentially, my room needed to resemble a Hollywood movie set, most of the other open houses had kids in some sort of costume, and a poster behind them. No one else had anything as elaborate even as mine. Except the English Teacher with the haunted house. That was amazing. They had sound and light effects, costumes, a black maze, and not one word of English in the entire thing. It was crazy! So all in all, I felt pretty good about mine.

When the time came, my students came in disguise. One mother brought chocolates with "Thanks for come to Open House 2008" attached to give away as goody prizes, and another mother brought scalloped potatoes to hand out. One mother brought brown face paint and "authenticated" two of my boys who had dressed to represent the AfroEcuadorian population (although I had SPECIFICALLY prohibited blackface) and then the kids went around and recited their information. It was a blast. They looked great, they knew their stuff, it was a success! Everyone kept complimenting me and congratulating me, but I wanted to tell them: I didn't do anything. They're the ones who made the costumes and the palm trees.

So all in all, it was a terrifying and overwhelming experience with expectations that I met, if only barely, but then turned out to not be actual expectations-- I'm still not sure on that part. I recommend looking through the pictures. It's a blast. I took pictures of all the open houses I went to, but at the very least, check out the ones of my room and my kids.

Thank God it's almost over, but in the meantime, it is a lot a lot of learning and a little bit of fun and, when I'm lucky and I have help, a success.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Upside, Inside-Out

Holy Macaroni---

Oh my goodness gracious--

Oy jeesh--

Yikes!

Oh for the love of Pete and his mother!!

Okay Pablo- even if you did miss class last week to go to a soccer game and so you didn't know we had homework what should you have done? huh? What should you have done? No, seriously! Do you think you should have asked me "Hey Profe- what did I miss last week?" or do you think you should have come to class, goofed around, and given Juan a purple nurple until he punched you-- RUBEN DO NOT TOUCH JUAN'S NIPPLE!!

These are a few little things I've been known to say in class these last few weeks.. that last one was all in one breath to the kid who was laying on the floor holding his crotch and crying because Juan had had enough and punched him "in the front of his pants"- which is how I had to explain it later. And, yes, some might say that I was perhaps being a little antagonistic to this kid- but it may make it better if you realize that he didn't understand a single mother-loving word of it.

So- needless to say-- it's been quite a week. I'm laughing now, but this is crazy. I have no idea why I'm here. Earlier this week I started looking up lesson plans from last year student teaching and realized that when the kids can sit down for more than 5 minutes you can actually do a LOT! I can't believe I used to complain about the kids at Florin and their lack of motivation! Then, after the purple nurple incident I was ready to come home. I called my mom to tell her to buy me a plane ticket. But what it really comes down to is two things: (are two things?): 1) the kids are really really really really bad. 2)It's really hard to be a part of a different culture. I am feeling so strongly about immigrants now-- being foreign is constant and exhausting, and I don't think most people would CHOOSE to live such a frustrating life unless they really had to. This is making me really really want to come home and work with immigrants and provide some sort of respite for them. Someone told me today that "We're foreigners and they should be kissing our feet to be here." I, on the other hand, tend to feel the opposite. Everything I do reflects on all of us and all of our culture. My anger is unjustified and unpolite. I am a guest in this country.... and imagine being a guest for four months!! It's definitely a drag.

However- complaining aside-- things are kind of going okay. Tiring for sure, but I'm starting to get a handle on a few things. No matter how angry and foreign I feel, I still love being the only non-Ecuadorian, or only American in a situation. The other week I went to la Parque Carolina to watch a friend play intermural soccer, and it was too much fun to be in Ecuador watching a local inter-mural soccer game and chatting with the Argentian professional player who came to unofficially scout and root for some friends. Mostly we chatted about how I had no idea what was going on, and then I asked him what a yellow card was-- but in my defense, Argentinians have a weird accent and I didn't understand him. Also- some of my students are starting to come to talk to me about their lives-- their parents or boyfriends or girlfriends or friends. They've taken to hanging out in my room during breaks to play Uno or practice their dance competition choreography or tell me about how Christian Guzman has dated all the 9th grade girls whose names start with M, so they call him "4M Guzman".

Plus- the other week I took my 9th graders outside to play American football on the condition that they all spoke English- well- they played Ecua-football, which was just soccer with a football.. there's a snap, and a play, but when the person with the ball gets stuck or something, they can throw it to whoever they want, who can then pass it to whoever they want, until they score a goal. At one point one of my kids (no matter how many times I tell them "TWO-HAND TOUCH") tackled me and left me with a HUGE bruise on my leg and arm-- which was fine.. it was just funny. But whenever anyone asks me "Teacher- what happened?" I tell them "Paolo Caicedo- that's who--" and he turns all red. Of course- nothing in this story would be even mildly appropriate in an American middle school, but everyone is very touchy here and (as long as you're appropriate which, HELLO, I always am) there's no problem!

Speaking of touchy- I promised a quick explanation of how Ecuadorian boys can't keep their hands off each other- and here are some examples. The other week I was teaching, and as it's virtually impossible to keep them in their seats, occasionally I turn a blind eye to two boys or two girls sharing a seat because they're sharing a book or something. However, this time I had to stop in the middle of what I was saying to watch as one boy sat on the other one's lap and STROKED the other one's hair while they discussed what the answer to #7 was or, more likely, who their favorite football player is and why the Barcelona team sucks. However, I'd rather have them caress each other than pull out each other's armpit hair or, as above mentioned, give each other purple nurples and engage in crotch-punching defenses. The point is- there's no taboo about touching here- no one thinks twice. Even in such a homophobic culture (as I've been told Latin cultures tend to be, though I have never personally witnessed anything) no one thinks twice about it. The girls are a little tougher. My who-I've-made-cry count as of today is: 9 boys 0 girls.

On the other hand, some little boys are the same in all countries. Yesterday I was playing The Beatles for my 5th graders because they know a lot of the songs and they like to sing along, and one of the lines was about kissing, so I teased one of the boys who's always causing trouble "Matiz- in a couple years you're going to have a girlfriend, and you're going to kiss her just like in the song" and he dry heaved on the floor for a minute while his friends laughed- then looked at me very seriously and quizzically and said (in English no less) "No. Ok. I kiss her one time so she marry with me-- but no again." While- at the exact same time another boy had found a picture of Meg Ryan and her adopted (apparently) Asian daughter and was pointing at it asking "Teacher Margaret, Teacher Margaret! Mistake of science?" Which- between the two of them- both being deathly serious- I almost fell on the floor from laughing.

One more silly one that will only be funny if you don't really speak Spanish- but the word in Spanish for "annoy, bother, or tease" is "molestar"-- so when my kids try to speak in English they'll tell me "Teacher! He molest me!" at which point (at least for the 9 year olds) I need to vaguely, but seriously, impress upon them that that is NOT the correct word, without giving too much explanation as to WHY.

So- I'm off to make salad dressing and be in bed by 9:30. Let me tell you, Ricky Martin knew what he was talking about-- because if this isn't "La Vida Loca" I really don't know what is.